First State hires four for property securities team

First State Investments has hired four investment professionals to the listed property securities team following Stephen Hayes rejoining the firm as head of property securities in September.

Tuan Pham is re-joining First State as a senior portfolio manager. Pham will specialise in Asian property securities and will be based in Sydney. He was previously the head of Asia at Perennial Real Estate Investments.

Joseph Daguio is also returning to First State as an investment analyst for the Asia Pacific region and will also be based in Sydney. He has extensive experience in the analysis of Australian and European property securities.

In Europe, Daniela Lungu and Boudewijn van Loen are joining the team as senior portfolio managers.

Lungu has more than 15 years’ experience in the analysis of European property securities. For the past year she has been a property consultant, advising European property companies on various strategic projects. Prior to this, Lungu was most recently a portfolio manager for UK and European property securities at CBRE Investors, heading the company’s UK office.

Van Loen has been managing global property securities portfolios for more than 20 years, most recently working with Hayes, Pham and Daguio at Perennial Real Estate Investments, where he held the position of head of Europe/UK. He has previously held portfolio management positions with F&C Investments and Achmea Global Investors.

David Dixon, First State Investment’s chief investment officer, says: “We believe that a regional approach – employing specialist property investment professionals in each region – is the most effective way to manage global property securities portfolios. Under Stephen’s leadership, we have a team of four team members based in New York, covering US, Canadian and Latin American property securities. Two senior portfolio managers will be based in Europe, covering UK and Continental European property markets, while four team members will cover the Asia Pacific region.”

As a result of these changes, senior portfolio manager Antoinette Plater based in Sydney and portfolio manager Marco van Bussel, as well as investment analysts Matthew Gulczynski based in London and Miranda Moran based in Hong Kong have left First State. Investment analyst John Stavliotis has accepted another role and will be finishing up at First State on 2 November 2012.